


American Gods

by gloriouswhisperstyphoon



Series: a truth that no one wants to hear [1]
Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: American Gods Fusion, F/M, Rebelcaptain if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 20:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15348429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouswhisperstyphoon/pseuds/gloriouswhisperstyphoon
Summary: Cassian meets an long-forgotten story in the form of Jyn and comes to an understanding of America and its gods.Everyone's only a story in the end.





	American Gods

In his dream, Cassian stands in the centre of a hall, larger than a city, stretching to oblivion. He turns and then he sees the _gods_.

The statues of them, lining the walls.There is a statue of a beautiful naked youth, his hair standing tousled forever in a row of curls.

He looked to the foot of the statue and realised that a name was burned into the floor before it. _Antinous._

A deep male voice whispers in Cassian’s mind. “These are the old gods, brought to this land by their worshippers, but they were forgotten. Their names can only be found in ancient histories and the last of their worshippers have turned to dust. But their names and images remain.”

He walks on, passing a man holding a shield above his head and a large golden ring around his neck. _Toutatis_ , he read.

A statue of a woman is frozen forever holding up a bowl with one hand and a torch with the other– her name is _Sigyn_.

And then suddenly he is walking into another room, and there are no flames and no names. Only statues, lining the walls as far as he can see, this room even larger than the first.

To his left, a woman stands, her skirts full and her headdress towering, a writhing snake held in each hand. And yet, she has no name.

The voice speaks in his mind again, full of regret and the weight of memory. “These are the gods that have passed beyond memory. Their names are lost, their last worshippers are dust and as forgotten as they are. Gods may be ideas, but they can be killed nonetheless - and when they die, they fade, unmourned and unremembered.”

A figure rises from the ground before Cassian, a great figure with the head of a buffalo, his eyes aflame and his voice speaks. “This is a bad land for gods.”

He can barely shape his reply. “What do you want from me?”

The flames of the buffalo-headed man’s eyes flicker, and the statues around them seeming to move in the firelight.

But he realises it is not the buffalo-headed man speaking to him. It is the flames themselves, the ground they stand upon, the world around them and the dark places beneath it.

“You must believe.”

“What are you? Are you a god too?” Cassian whispers, his mouth suddenly as dry as the dust on the statues.

The buffalo-headed man stretches out a single hand to touch Cassian’s forehead, as warm as life itself.“I am the land.”

 

\--

 

Cassian stirred awake, only darkness surrounding him. He turned towards the window and he started awake - there was a figure standing by the window, their face tilted upward.

“Kay?” he whispered.

The figure turned towards him, her face framed by the moonlight.

_No. Not Kay._

“I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He shook his head, to try and knock his confusion loose.

She tilted her head towards the window. “I wanted to look at the stars. Would you like to join me?”

Without a second word, she opened the window and climbed up onto the fire escape, Cassian hesitated a moment, pulling on his shoes and socks before following her.

 

\--

 

“Does the cold bother you?” he said as the wind whipped around them on top of the building.

The woman shrugged a single shoulder as they faced each other, before she stepped lightly across the roof to stand barefoot on the ledge of the building, the hem of her nightgown fluttering gently.

“How could I be cold? This is my time - I miss the others, but this is when I’m most alive.”

Cassian rubbed his arms, trying to get some warmth back into them.He couldn’t tell her age at all - her hair was dark, her face was still unlined and her eyes were green, with flecks almost like the dust of the stars above.

“Who are you? I met your - father?” he asked. He’d only come up here to get a quiet place to think, and found a strange woman staring up at the stars instead.

She let a brief laugh. “Saw is not my father - we’re only of the same people. I heard you crying out in your sleep, though. You were tossing and turning and I wanted to wake you up -”

“Saw?”

“Oh - he calls himself that, much like how your Mister Wednesday is Draven and Odin all at once. He is Czernobog as much as he is Saw.”

“And you are?”

A shrug. “In the old country, I was Zorya Polonuchnaya, the midnight star. But now I’m just Jyn. And you are? Cassian - I think Saw said. The Empty One.”

He felt his face twist into a look of confusion. “Empty? What do you mean?”

“You’re haunted by something - I saw it in your dreams.”

“You saw it in my dreams? How the hell would you do that?”

She shrugged again and the rooftop was plunged into silence once more as she turned to look up at the stars.

He seemed to be drawn closer to her, like a magnet to iron. “What are you looking at?”

Jyn raised an arm to point at a star in the sky.

He followed its line up into the cosmos. “The Big Dipper.”

Her voice was filled with longing when she replied. “Odin’s wain, it was called. Where I was from, it was believed that a great beast was caught and chained up in those stars. If it escaped, it would eat the entire universe. And there were three sisters that watched over it, all day and all night.”

“And people believed that?”

She nodded and smiled, a bitter, empty thing. “They did. A long time ago. But now there is only me to remember it.”

Cassian had nothing to say back to her. It felt as though he were in a dream, with the formless logic that made up one.“How old are you?”

She ignored him. “Who were they?”

He was taken aback. “Who?”

“The one you were talking about in your sleep.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “His name was Kay. He died last week in an accident. He came to me last night.”

The moonlight stretched out between the two of them, filled with the things unsaid and the single coin that he’d dropped into Kay’s grave, spinning on and on until eternity.

“Did you ask him what he wanted?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe you should do that. The dead often have a lot to say. I heard that you played checkers with Saw, earlier.”

“Yeah. He won the right to knock my head in with his hammer.”

Jyn’s face was full of pity when he came closer, their bodies almost touching.

“In the old days, they would take people into the mountains and the high places. They would dedicate them to Saw and smash their heads in with a rock.”

Cassian shrugged.

“Now, in the future? It doesn’t matter. I should have died a long time ago.”

The silence grew between them again and he tilted his face to look at the stars.

He suddenly found his voice, the darkness loosening his tongue. “I don’t understand this world - I feel like Alice in the looking glass. There’s all these rules, and all these people and everyone knows each other. Do you understand?”

Her face was inscrutable. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips once, then twice. “It’s a strange land you’re in - you had the protection of the father once and you gave it away. I can’t give you that much, only that of the daughter. Will it help?”

At this point in time, Cassian was wary of any strangers offering their protection or their assistance.“What’s your price?”

She reached a single finger to tap her cheek. “A kiss?”

He leaned in close to her, looking at the wind stirring the little strands of loose hair, before he touched his lips to her cheeks, a dry little thing before she stretched her hand out towards the moon, her hand and forefinger placed so that they were almost grasping it. And then she plucked at it, a single Liberty dollar appearing between them.

She placed it into his hand, a cool and solid counterweight to the thoughts flying about his head.

He stared in awe at her, shocked and stunned into silence.

“I took the moon to give it to you. May it light your way through the dark places.”

And with that, she leaned forwards, standing on her tiptoes and kissing each of his eyelids before the world became darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to TinCanTelephone for being the world's most ruthless beta and for listening to me while I yelled about the plot.


End file.
